Thursday, February 28, 2008

President Bush said Thursday the country is not recession-boundand, despite expressing concern about slowing economic growth,rejected for now any additional stimulus efforts. "We acted robustly,"he said.

"We'll see the effects of this pro-growth package," Bush told reportersat a White House news conference, acknowledging that some lawmakersalready are talking about a second stimulus package. "Why don't we letstimulus package 1, which seemed like a good idea at the time, have achance to kick in?"

Bush's view of the economy was decidedly rosier than that of manyeconomists, who say the country is nearing recession territory ormay already be there. "I'm concerned about the economy," he said."I don't think we're headed to recession. But no question, we're in aslowdown."

Looks like President Bush is parsing words like some else did in a debate recently:

Obama mocked a more optimistic economic picture painted byBush at a White House news conference just moments earlier:"People are struggling in the midst of an economy that GeorgeBush says is not a recession but is experienced differently byfolks on the ground."

I also found this part of the Bush press conference interesting:

The president advised his own successor to develop a personalrelationship with whomever is in charge in Moscow

"As you know, Putin's a straightforward, pretty tough characterwhen it comes to his interests — well so am I," Bush said. He saidthat he and Putin have "had some diplomatic head butts."

Bush also said, however, that the pair have "a cordial enoughrelationship to be able to deal with common threats and opportunities,and that's going to be important for the next president to maintain."

Bush also defended his stance of not talking directly with leaders ofadversaries such as Cuba without setting preconditions. In doing so,he offered some of his strongest criticism yet of Raul Castro, who assumedCuba's presidency on Sunday after his ailing brother Fidel, who ruled fordecades, stepped aside.

"Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant suchas Raul Castro, for example, lends the status of the office and the statusof our country to him," Bush said.

I am an absolute novice when it comes to foreign policy but I honestly don't see howsitting down with Raul Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jon-il will accomplisha single thing. Does one really think that sitting down with dictators like Jon-il andCastro will make them change their ways? I would think closed societies would haveto show signs of some reforms before talks with the United States can begin. Also,Ahmadinejad is not the supreme leader of Iran, therefore, it would be useless.